1994:200 - THE NUNNERY, Roscommon

Excavations were conducted in advance of conservation work . The placename is alternatively derived from Teach Srathra (the house of the straddle or the pilgrim's hospitality house) or Teach Saidhra "The house of Sara" (or Sarah). The teach element may derive from the Latin domus and may indicate that the placename is an early ecclesiastical one. The site is located in the townland of Carrowntemple (i.e. the Church Quarter).

Seven cuttings were made to allow for the bringing overground of wall footings and to allow doorways to be reconstructed using displaced (but original) architectural fragments. The conservation work was overseen by Mr. Peter Geraghty, former Clerk of Works, OPW.

Prior to excavation a nave and chancel survived overground along with a block consisting of a pair of vaulted chambers located to the south of the nave. The north transept was evidenced only by a low bank of overlying, robbed-out foundations.

Cutting 1 resulted in the recovery of the footings of a 15th–16th-century doorway with decorated stops bearing foliage.

Cuttings 2 and 3 in the nave lead to the discovery that there was an early phase in the nave and an early original east gable. This may have been of 12th–13th-century date but no datable architectural fragments remained in situ .

No traces of the 15th–16th-century altar were recovered in Cutting 4 though a fragment of the mensa of the altar was recovered from another cutting at the site.

Cutting 5, beneath a rebuilt modern boundary wall, uncovered the bases of two large piers which may have supported a narrow tower or arch between the nave and the north transept.

Cutting 6 was abandoned when it was found that no traces of the west gable of the church were likely to have survived later burial at the site.

Cutting 7 involved the stripping of an accumulation of scraw from the top of the web of one of the two vaulted chambers of the southern block.

Several phases of development at the site were revealed as a result of excavation:

An early phase is discernible in the side walls of the nave and possibly in parts of the north transept in which there is large stonework consisting of stones which are only barely dressed to rectilinear shape. These stones are derived from local weathered limestone rather than being quarried cut ashlar.

The numerous late 12th- to early 13th-century architectural fragments found around the site including elements of doorways and windows may belong to this phase, but none were found in situ or in large 'semi-cyclopean' masonry. The fragments were built into late and post-medieval fabric and boundary walls.

The chancel is an addition extended out from the eastern part of the church and is of 15th–16th-century date.

The two vaulted chambers which extend from the south side of the nave postdate it and the chancel. The buildings and their upper level (probably a dormitory block) of which little survives, postdates the late 15th–16th-century phase but by what length of time is uncertain.

The tracery of a large 15th-century type window which survives may well have been incorporated originally in the west gable which does not now survive above ground level. A niche of uncertain function (a piscina niche?) with a 15th-century date which appears to have been equipped with a hood with a moulded stop is also represented, but its original location is uncertain. It may have been located in the north transept of which only wall footings had survived. (A segment of moulded stone from it was found in the north transept.)

A post-medieval Church of Ireland church in which 12th–13th and 15th–16th-century architectural fragments had been re-used, as well as two 19th-century walled burial enclosures (again with re-used stones incorporated in them), were constructed in the north-west corner of the cemetery.

A number of 15th–16th-century fragments of a stoup or font were recovered. If these are from a stoup they represent a very rare type of Irish free-standing late medieval stoup.

A late medieval (16th–17th-century) wayside cross was reconstructible from fragments (see Excavations 1993, 68–69 for another example at Dysart, Co. Roscommon).

The non-architectural fragments included a large number of pebbles used for smoothing, burnishing and hammering, a large boulder-like maul or pestle, small utilized pebbles, pot boilers and other burnt stones. Quern fragments (all from disc querns of Caulfield's Type C) occurred in large numbers and included late medieval cross-decorated fragments of a type previously found at Dysart, Co. Roscommon; Tuam, Co. Galway; St. James' Church, Ballybane, Galway City; Moyne Graveyard, Co. Mayo and many other west of Ireland sites (see Excavations 1990–1993) . Many items included a D-shaped copper alloy object, a socketed iron object (possibly a spear head or goad) and iron spline (used for securing one stone of an architectural feature to another) and a variety of nails. Only two pieces of late medieval to post-medieval pottery were recovered though quantities of modern pottery and glass did occur. The clay-pipes found were almost all of 19th-century date and came from Knockcroghery, Co. Roscommon, and Galway city factories. Part of a post-medieval ridge tile was also found.

18 College Rd., Galway